


To Sip from This Cup

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-01
Updated: 2013-01-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 23:23:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leave no stone unturned, no wine undrunk</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Sip from This Cup

**Author's Note:**

> Porn Battle XII
> 
> Originally posted 7-31-11

Sebastian is, as always, doing anything but what he has actually been charged with doing. It’s endearing in his own way, and Charles doesn’t truly mind, since it allows him ample time to sketch the way the sunlight reflects off Sebastian’s hair and the way the lines of his body stretch and move as he skims stones across the surface of the pond. There is actually some work to be done, but the heat of the day and their own willful natures have led them here, shoes and socks tucked away and pants rolled up, feet damp from the dew.

It’s early spring so the water is undoubtedly cold, so Charles has encamped himself far enough back that Sebastian’s failed attempts with the rocks can’t splash back against him, though he keeps his hand shielding his paper nonetheless. Aloysius is propped against the basket of food that they had stolen from the kitchen, nothing resembling a meal so much as fruits and cheese and bread and sweets and wine, so much wine.

“Uncork the wine.”

“It’s too early,” Charles informs him, closing his sketch book and sitting up, sliding his feet along the blanket to dry them completely. “We’ll be sodden fools by noon, and then where will we be?”

“Right here, Charles, as we are now, enjoying ourselves.”

“We have work to do.”

“Work will always be there. That is its nature. Just as this is our nature. To eat and drink and skip stones and spend our hours reveling in our youth.” He turns from his spot on a large rock that juts out over the pond. “What is youth but to be wasted?”

“You are, as always, poetic in your laziness.”

“Not laziness. To be lazy would be to do nothing. I fully propose that we do things. Eat. Drink. Be merry.” He throws his head back and laughs, open and easy and all the things that Charles cannot help but yearn for. “Swim.”

“It’s cold.”

“Only at first. Everything is awful at first.” He continues to smile, his teeth gleamin in the sunlight. He tugs his braces down, letting them hang at his sides and pulls his shirt from his trousers. “Admit it.”

“Not everything.” He lifts his sketchbook to shade his eyes from the sun, watching as Sebastian unbuttons his shirt. “Wine is awful at the end.”

“No. Wine is awful when you first awaken from it.” He takes off his shirt, tossing it aside, letting it fall in the wild golden grasses, wind catching the sleeve as if waving goodbye. He unfastens his trousers and steps out of them, balancing carefully from one foot to the next. They land in a heap beside his shirt when he throws them, like skin shed to make him something new.

“I should know better than to argue with your vastly superior knowledge in all things excess.”

“Well you should.” Sebastian strips out of his undershirt, exposing his pale skin and the dark hairs that trail down from his navel. “For in all matters excess, there is none so well-versed as I.” His button fronts are next, and he peels them off with what Charles is assured would be a lack of shame if he thought Sebastian had any shame to start. Naked, Sebastian is a specimen, and Charles never fails to appreciate him as such. “Come and swim, Charles.”

Like nectar to a honeybee, Charles is incapable of resisting the lure of Sebastian’s voice. He strips out of his own clothes, no show or style at all, merely the need, the _desire_ to appease. He joins Sebastian on the rock, shivering in the sudden breeze. “We’re likely to freeze off our most valuable family assets.”

“My assets are of no value to my family,” Sebastian’s voice is full of amusement, but there’s a bitterness underlying it, the same darkness that shadows Sebastian’s every interaction or conversation with the rest of the Flytes, even his beloved Julia and Cordelia. “I’m quite convinced they would be relieved if I were relieved of them.”

“I certainly don’t share the sentiment.” Charles reaches out, trailing a daring hand from Sebastian’s ribcage down to his navel, to the column of dark hair that leads down to the object of their discussion. “And I say that not simply because I have no desire whatsoever to go in that water.”

Sebastian laughs and, quick as the wind, pushes Charles into the water. He goes beneath the surface, his hands touching the rocks and dirt at the bottom before he comes up, skin sheathed by tiny bubbles and weeds tickling the bottoms of his feet. Everything about him feels shriveled and freezing.

“Y-y-you’re a…you are a b-bastard of the h-hi-high-highest order.”

“Why thank you.” Sebastian steps into the water and shivers, backing out quickly. “Far too cold for a swim, Charles.”

“You…” He surges out of the water, sending spray everywhere as he chases Sebastian back to their spread of blankets, catching him with a flying leap and taking him down on top of it. Sebastian laughs and struggles, wrenching Charles’s sketchbook from beneath him and tossing it aside while Charles climbs up his body, soaking them both. “You are unrepentant and pure evil.”

“Yes.” Sebastian doesn’t ever bother to deny it, and no matter how much of a joke Charles makes it, there is the core of belief in Sebastian every time. “I am.”

“Quiet,” Charles admonishes, covering Sebastian’s mouth with his own. Sebastian’s body is warm from the sun and the heat he carries within him and Charles chases it with kisses and touches that banish the chill from his wet skin. “Kiss me.”

“I am.” Sebastian’s hands are wild and unrestrained, running up and down Charles’s back, over the curve of his buttocks. He feels Sebastian’s legs part and settles down beneath them, pressing himself to the hard curve of Sebastian’s body. They kiss like drunken nights and revelry, hard and desperate and biting, sucking on swollen skin until everything is flush and alive and beating inside them, the rest of the world vanished like a dream. “I am. I want.”

“Sebastian.” Charles groans the word against Sebastian’s throat, biting the tendon that stands out in high relief. He cannot help the downward thrust of his hips, the need boiling inside him. Whatever chill the water brought on is gone now, lost in the heat of their closeness, banished as Sebastian’s hand curves around them both. “O-oh yes.”

Long tight fingers and flesh against flesh, wetness and the slick slide as Sebastian strokes them push all thought from Charles’s head. He feels every breath, every hitch, every jerk of Sebastian’s body, feels him like they’re one. He wants to look in Sebastian’s head when they’re like this and see it from his eyes, feel it from his body, but just when he thinks it might be possible, the world vanishes in a haze of bright light and the same sickening sweet of morning wine.  



End file.
